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Marin Country Day School

The Challenge

In 2006, Marin Country Day School (MCDS) leadership collaborated to shape the school’s strategic direction for the next five years, and the resulting plan emphasized the need to prepare students to lead in an increasingly diverse, environmentally vulnerable and interconnected world.

School officials felt that the school needed new facilities in order to realize its vision and decided to undertake a $20 million campaign to support a new learning resource center, new and renovated classrooms, campus improvements, and other strategic initiatives. Although the school had a history of campaign success, it had never called upon donors to support capital projects of this magnitude.

The Process

From our first day of work together, we helped MCDS staff articulate the urgency of the new buildings, as well as explain their direct impact on the students and programs. Throughout our engagement, we also assisted staff in engaging volunteers to support the campaign.

We created a centralized information center to update volunteers on campaign progress and all major campaign activities, as well as a volunteer handbook to guide staff in training volunteers to fill important campaign roles. As a result, representatives from the school community played a substantial role in driving campaign success.

“Campbell & Company helped us put great systems in place so we could support our volunteers. They’re able to focus on making contacts and using their relationships with fellow parents to solicit gifts.”

-Sarah McKay, Director of Development, Marin Country Day School

The Impact

Within a year, the campaign reached $12 million, or 60 percent of its goal—the amount that MCDS took three years to reach in its previous campaign. Every campaign committee member made a gift to support the effort, and the campaign ultimately secured $19.5 million.